National Herald Case: Court rejects Subramanian Swamy's plea

New Delhi: Providing some relief to Congress leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, a Delhi court on Monday rejected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy's plea, in which he sought to ask the Congress party and Associated Journals Ltd (AJL) to produce some records related to the National Herald case.

Describing the plea as a "fishing inquiry", the court said that Swamy was seemingly trying to enlarge the scope of present proceedings.

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Metropolitan Magistrate Lovleen also directed Swamy to submit the list of his witnesses in the National Herald case against Gandhis and some other Congress politicians. The court set February 10 as the date of hearing the arguments and framing of charges.

What the Delhi court said?

"At the very outset, this court must observe that by using the terms 'verify'/'see'/'investigate' (in application) the complainant (Swamy) admits that he himself is not aware of the contents of the said documents.

"In these circumstances, the prayer of the complainant is nothing but a fishing enquiry which is not permitted under the law. This court feels that by seeking the above documents the complainant seems to enlarge scope of present proceedings," the court said.

The court also said, "Most number of the documents sought do not seem relevant in view of context of present allegations and do not seem to be connected to the facts required to be proved by the complainant."

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The court further added that a few other documents which seemed to be relevant could not be summoned as they were to be contemporaneous with the examination of prosecution witnesses. In the current case the complainant has not yet produced the list of witnesses who examined in pre-charge stage. So the court has decided to reject the plea of the complainant.

What is the matter?

In a private criminal complaint, Swamy has blamed Sonia, Rahul Gandhi and others of conspiring to cheat and misappropriate funds by paying only Rs 50 lakh due to which Young Indian Pvt Ltd (YI) acquired the right to recover Rs 90.25 crore which AJL owed to the Congress.

Swamy had urged the court to direct the Gandhis to produce the documents related to a loan sanctioned in favour of AJL, the holding firm of the National Herald, alleging that these were important for the purposes of trail in the case.